That % is a lot higher than I would've thought.
My reaction too. As the father of two not-yet-married, twenty-something kids (one male and one female) I worry a lot.
It is probably a lot higher than actual reality. The fact that the author is a political speech writer tells me that there is likely to be a bit of scare-mongering in her verbiage.
Michael
That is what I was thinking. But they are probably including STDs that most people don't think of as STDs. There are a quite a number of essentially innocuous viruses that can be sexually transmitted that you'll never know you have. Some, like CMV and similar, they only really know about because they have to screen the blood supply for it when selecting blood for people with damaged immune systems (like AIDS patients), but something like 80+% of the population has it.
The number of sexually transmitted viruses and such are much higher than the number that actually have significant medical consequences or any symptoms. Many of the viruses are fairly benign and just come along for the ride. I generally avoid viruses as a rule (who doesn't?), but there are many sexually transmitted ones that are symptomless that a majority of the population carries.
That % is a lot higher than I would've thought.
When they start throwing around large number like that without a great deal of solid info to back it up I get suspcious. If that really were the case, we'd hear about it from more than some political speech writer. Politicans would break there legs running to give huge amounts of money and face time.
"In any case, many STDs are transmitted skin to skin, which dodges condoms anyway."
Oh really? So that means I can shake someone's hand and get many STDs eh? It's just that easy. STDs are a problem, but outrageous fear mongering and mythmaking will only make things worse.